South Harting had had its little group
of artistic people; it is not one of your sleepy villages, and she
slipped back at once into the movement. Those were the great days
of John, the days before the Post Impressionist outbreak. John,
Orpen, Tonks, she bought them with vigour. Artistic circles began
to revolve about her. Very rapidly she was in possession. . . .
And among other desirable things she had, it seemed, pounced upon
and captured Lady Marayne.
At any rate it was clear that that awful hostile silence and
aloofness was to end. Benham never quite mastered how it was done.
But Amanda had gone in one morning to Desborough Street, very
sweetly and chastely dressed, had abased herself and announced a
possible (though subsequently disproved) grandchild. And she had
appreciated the little lady so highly and openly, she had so
instantly caught and reproduced her tone, that her success, though
only temporary in its completeness, was immediate. In the afternoon
Benham was amazed by the apparition of his mother amidst the
scattered unsettled furnishings of the new home Amanda had chosen in
Lancaster Gate.
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